siliconANGLE » MIT Hacks Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation Chrome Extension

MIT Hacks Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation Chrome Extension

Kit Dotson | November 29th
READ MORE

kinect-pr-top-11 The Xbox Kinect camera-interface has been the center of a lot of amusing controversy lately and it’s also been the center of a groundswell of amazing innovations. The newest invention to leap out of this little-developed device produced by Microsoft has been a gesture-based navigation extension for the open source Chrome browser.

ReadWriteWeb brings us the scoop,

Called DepthJS, the software is on GitHub and open for collaboration… Some of the gestures appear more dramatic than I would want to use to navigate the Web with, but perhaps that will change in time. If a gesture-based interface could capture text input as well, that would be even cooler. Cursor motion alone, however, is all it takes to evoke a vision of the future in which Kinect-like devices are used to control all kinds of Web-connected devices.

The Kinect contains an entire suite of extremely useful drivers and other processing power for tracking movement in its field of view. With this sort of development we could see a low cost, open source Minority Report gesture interface cropping up. We would just simply have to combine the Kinect camera with a projector and a wall and viola, home-entertainment at its finest. A game could be projected onto the wall from one angle, the player could stand in front of it with the camera facing them, and gesticulate wildly at the “screen” for a huge amusement factor.

Why hasn’t Microsoft tried to leverage this yet? Perhaps they’re waiting for all the millions of homebrew hackers and hobbyists out there to come up with the idea and then they’ll market it themselves.

Meanwhile, enjoy the video.

DepthJS from Fluid Interfaces on Vimeo.

In the same vein:

About Kit Dotson

Technology and civilization walk hand in hand and civilization is nothing without the skin of society, brushing up against itself, speaking strange nothings across dimly lit avenues and computer screens. If we're going to understand ourselves in this digital era, it will be through watching the adoption of technology by people to express themselves as people. I am an anthropologist and an author of science fiction and fantasy--and with my techology, I hope to open up new and exciting worlds that both enlighten the humanity of my friends and fans, but also educate and enhance the expression of their own personhood.
Post comment as
twitter logo facebook logo
Sort: Newest | Oldest

Trackbacks

  1. KinectShare - MIT Hacks Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation Chrome Extension says:
    November 29, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    [...] Visit link: MIT Hacks Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation Chrome Extension [...]

  2. Chrome Extension by MIT Hacks Microsoft’s Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation | winextra says:
    November 30, 2010 at 7:24 pm

    [...] written by Kit Dotson for SiliconAngle and reposted here with [...]

  3. Waiting for a Kinect Sex Game? Well, Here You Go… | SiliconANGLE says:
    December 17, 2010 at 11:06 am

    [...] even moral. The adult entertainment industry was going to get in on this thing immediately after we discovered exactly how versatile this technology is and it demonstrated explosive popularity. Any industry not ready to jump on this bandwagon would [...]

  4. 2010 Round Up: Kinect Revolutionizes I/O | SiliconANGLE says:
    December 24, 2010 at 10:31 am

    [...] MIT took the Kinect and hacked a gesture-based navigation mechanism for the Google Chrome browser. No more need for a mouse or keyboard with this, the user could just reach up towards the screen [...]

  5. 2010 Round Up: Kinect Revolutionizes I/O | Kinectola says:
    December 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm

    [...] MIT took the Kinect and hacked a gesture-based navigation mechanism for the Google Chrome browser. No more need for a mouse or keyboard with this, the user could just reach up towards the screen [...]

  6. “Pandora’s Box” – 2010 Round Up: Kinect Revolutionizes I/O [24Dec10] | The Book says:
    February 22, 2011 at 2:34 pm

    [...] MIT took the Kinect and hacked a gesture-based navigation mechanism for the Google Chrome browser. No more need for a mouse or keyboard with this, the user could just reach up towards the screen [...]

  7. TLD, aka Predator, Kinect-like Open Source Tracking Algorithms | Kinectola says:
    May 11, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    [...] MIT Hacks Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation Chrome Extension [...]

  8. Kinect Fun Labs: Testbed For the Future of Interactive Media | Kinectola says:
    June 8, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    [...] MIT Hacks Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation Chrome Extension [...]

  9. Kinect Developers Start Your Compilers: Microsoft to Launch Accelerator Program | Kinectola says:
    November 21, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    [...] MIT Hacks Kinect for Gesture-based Browser Navigation Chrome Extension [...]